Opposites In Balance
by Laura Schiller
Summary: Spoilers for "The Last Jedi". Finn asks Rose about the symbolism behind her necklace.


Opposites In Balance

By Laura Schiller

Based on: _Star Wars_

Copyright: Disney

Rose Tico's Hessian smelt pendant caught the light as she twisted it in her hands. Finn smiled to himself, watching her. He might have known that, even injured and ordered to rest, this small, energetic woman would have trouble keeping still.

"It looks like a moon," he said. "Seen from planetside, when it's waning. Except for that round bit on one side."

It suited her, he thought. She looked a bit like a moon herself with her round cheeks and golden skin.

"Sort of." She smiled wryly. "That codebreaker may have been a backstabbing snake, but I'm glad he didn't keep it."

Finn ordered himself not to think about the man who had sold them out to the First Order. If he did, he would only want to shoot something, and that was not the right attitude to bring to his comrade's sickbed.

(If "comrade" was even the right word for what Rose was to him. But, again, he'd better think about that later.)

"Does it have a meaning?" he asked. "That shape?"

She tucked it back down the collar of her mechanic's suit and lowered her arms, as if even that small exertion had tired her out. She closed her eyes for so long that he wondered if she was going to sleep, but when she spoke, it was in a soft murmur that proved she was simply far away in her thoughts.

"There's supposed to be two of them," she said. "When you put them together, they make a circle. My ancestors, even as far back as Earth, had their theories about the Force – only they didn't call it that. But the idea of light and darkness, _yin_ and _yang_ , two opposing forces keeping the universe in balance … it's one of my people's most important beliefs."

Tears leaked between Rose's eyelashes as she spoke.

"Paige … my sister … she had the other half. Our mother gave them to us when we came of age."

Finn had to swallow a lump in his throat as he remembered what she'd told him the first time they met. How Paige Tico, someone he'd never personally met, had looked up to him as a hero and inspired Rose to do the same. How both women had left the poor mining colony they'd grown up on to join the Resistance, only for Paige to die in battle. The counterpart to Rose's pendant was probably floating in space by now along with her sister's body.

No wonder Rose's loyalty to the Resistance bordered on the extreme. No wonder she knocked would-be deserters unconscious and crashed her ship to save a comrade. The rebels were all the family she had left.

Finn wished he knew what that felt like, having a family.

His own parents must have been either fanatical or poor, to have sold him to the army as a toddler. He had tried to think of his fellow trainees as brothers, but it had been clear most of them didn't feel the same, and especially not their commanding officers.

When his year-mate, copilot, and only friend had bled out in front of his eyes, reaching out for help he couldn't give, no one else on the battlefield had even turned around. Later on, when Phasma had caught Finn tearing off his bloodstained helmet, instead of saying _I'm sorry,_ or even _Why didn't you defend him?_ , she had merely snapped at him for being out of uniform.

Finn had been used to such inhumanity all his life, but that was too much. He'd taken his next chance to escape with Poe Dameron and never looked back.

Still, the sight of red blood on white armor continued to trouble his sleep. He wished he had a name to whisper, like Rose had Paige's, instead of just a serial number. He wished he had a memento to hold in his hands.

"Take care of it," he said, clearing his throat to disguise the telltale roughness in his voice. "Don't give it to any more criminals, okay?" he teased, hoping to get a smile out of her, and just barely succeeding.

 _And remember her,_ he wanted to say, but that would be redundant. Rose would remember Paige anyway, for the rest of her life. But she hadn't let loss turn her cold and hard like some soldiers did. She could still smile in awe at the sight of a beautiful animal, or get excited about meeting a so-called hero like Finn.

Because that was the kind of person Rose Tico was: strong without cruelty, loving without weakness. Even without her other half, she was still whole.

 _Don't fight what you hate,_ she had said, reaching up to kiss him just before losing consciousness in her pilot's seat. _Save what you love._

Now he understood.

He took her hand in his and weaved their fingers together: small and large, pale and dark. Opposites in balance.

"Get some sleep," he said. "I'm not going anywhere."


End file.
